


In the Catacombs of Ba Sing Se

by quarantineddreamer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Relationship, Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, F/M, Hope, Implied Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Inner Dialogue, Inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quarantineddreamer/pseuds/quarantineddreamer
Summary: A one-shot retelling of the scenes between Katara and Zuko in Ba Sing Se. Inner-turmoil and new beginnings. I do not own Avatar, but would love to write something as beautiful someday. *sigh* Please review if you read, I haven't shared my writing with anyone in almost a decade (see bio for that sob story).
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	In the Catacombs of Ba Sing Se

The glow of the crystals cast a phosphorescent glow over them both. 

Zuko remembered the moment he had been shoved into the cavern - _cage_ \- and how when his tumble had been arrested by the hard earth the first thing he had seen of his new surroundings, was in fact, a familiar face, though not a welcoming one. His stomach performed nervous acrobats as he knelt before her and watched her jaw -slack in shock- tighten in recognition, her brows scrunching together in severe wrinkles. “Zuko?!” She glared. _I am clearly not who she was hoping for._ He gave a heavy sigh. 

* * *

He had looked surprised, like someone had punched him in the stomach. Katara wished that were true. _Jerk,_ she thought to herself bitterly. _I_ would _be stuck here with this JERK. This bully. Cruel. Heartless..Ugl-no...Selfish..._ The adjectives ran like a current through her mind, but eventually even the anger was not enough to distract her from the cold reality. She was trapped. Aaang and the others were gone. Azula had taken over… It was a rare moment that hope felt so far away from her grasp. Her chest tightened painfully as she struggled to take a deep breath, to fend off the pricking sensation in her eyes where tears threatened to break. She buried her head deeper into her arms which were crossed over her knees and pulling her legs close, desperate for some comfort. _You can’t just sit here and cry!_ She chided herself. _But what can I do…_ With a growl of frustration she forced herself to her feet, desperate for a distraction.

Her eyes landed on the hunched, silent figure of the fire-bender sitting a few feet away.

* * *

Zuko was careful to find a spot where the water-bender would have some space of her own. Careful to find a spot where he could avoid her intense blue-stare. How was it that they had such an effect on him? Each time their eyes met it was as though she had the ability to make him feel every ounce of pain he had ever caused her -ten-fold... _Why do I care? I know who I’ve been..._ but deep inside was another voice, his uncle’s, reminding him of what he could be. If he dared to contemplate that for too long, that potential… it felt like holding a warm cup of tea in his heart. But he quickly shook the thought. _Remember who you are… What makes you think you deserve that?_ he thought in disgust. 

There was the sudden sound of feet scrapping loose dirt. “Why did they throw you in here?!” she shouted. “Oh, wait, let me guess, it’s a trap! So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little _Fire Nation_ clutches.” 

He glanced over his shoulder at her, but was careful not to show too much of a reaction. He knew from his father’s rage, that sometimes it was safer to just let fire burn out, rather than try and tame it.

“You’re a terrible person, you know that? Always following us, hunting the Avatar, trying to capture the world’s last hope for _peace_.” He didn’t need her to recite his sins. That sensation of comfort, that vision his uncle held of what he could be, what Zuko had started to hope he could be… “But what do you care? You’re the Fire Lord’s son.” The dream of this new Zuko, it flew away from him, turned smoke on a breeze at her words. And yet...

* * *

“Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood.” Katara ranted. What else was she to do stuck in this _stupid_ cave with the boy who had caused her so much trouble. So much _grief._

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t? How dare you?!” Her hands balled themselves into fists. She became very aware of the water in the pouch she carried. How easy it would be to use that against him… but for some reason she was not yet done sharing with Zuko, reciting to him her pain, as though throwing it at him would fix _all of it_ somehow. 

“You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me, personally!” She could no longer look at him, who was she kidding. She had said it, he was the Fire Lord’s son, what would he understand. 

* * *

“The fire nation took my mother away from me.” Zuko could hear the heartbreak in her voice, and he felt it as though it were his own… and maybe it was. After all, who had taken _his_ mother? 

The defenses he had thrown up so readily, prepared for an attack, collapsed just as quickly. _Maybe… this is where it starts._ “I’m sorry,” Zuko said, and he meant it more than he had ever meant anything in his entire life. 

He uncurled slightly, but not fully, not wanting to scare her, not forgetting who he was, but she was no longer facing him anyways. Instead, she had returned to the floor, sobbing. _Her rage burnt out so quickly…_ Zuko thought, which made him wonder, was there a way to carry anger other than the way he had carried his for so many years? A volcano, ever burning, and all too frequently exploding painfully, blindingly? 

Her sobs continued and he wanted so badly to do as his uncle would hope he would. He was empty without the volcanic rage, but he wanted to feel something, he wanted to feel warm. Distantly he recalled the last time he had felt something other than rage, other than emptiness…

He had always pushed her face from his mind, because deep down he knew...that though he did what he thought he had to to survive, she would not have approved, she would have been heartbroken at what he had become. Chasing the Avatar? Trying to win back his honour? She would have loved him more if he had just left it all behind to pursue what was _right_. 

When she was alive… That was the last time he had fully felt that warmth he had begun to dream of again. In the comfort of the embraces she gave him, so easily -even when he failed. And they always left him feeling warmed from the inside out. 

Where would he be now if he had not lost her? How different his path might have been...

_But they stole her from me…_

* * *

“That’s something we have in common.” His voice was quiet, she just barely heard it through her own cries. Katara had not expected it, and it made her sit upright, quickly. _What?_

She rose to her feet. He was already on his, almost like he had been about to approach her. She eyed him suspiciously for a few moments, then looked more closely at his face. 

She remembered when she had seen him shielding his uncle with his own body after the older man had been injured. How, for the first time, she had seen the human behind the enemy they constantly faced. He had been so frightened, but like a wounded animal, vulnerable and afraid, he had quickly snapped at them to leave before she could see beneath the mask he always wore, that face, so horribly twisted in frustration and pain. That face had made her hesitate… made her think _what if..._

This was a new face, but it similarly made her pause… Despite all her anger, her hurt, his face was so earnest, hopeful, begging for some kindness. Maybe she didn’t know what she had been talking about… not fully… Katara recognized in herself that she had not always been so quick to fight, to anger, that the life she had lived had shaped her into who she was today. And Zuko… he had always been angry, fighting, every time they saw him. For maybe the first time, she looked at him and saw his scar for what it was, an untold story... _What happened to you, Zuko?_

She took a deep breath, _what if…_ “I’m sorry I yelled at you before.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, looking away. His posture was that of the defeated, the hopeless.

"It’s just… For so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face.”

He glanced towards her again. Did she see a flash of hurt in his eyes? “My face, I see.” 

* * *

_What did I expect? Stupid, stupid, Zuko._ He reached a hand up to hover above his scar, the mark that reminded him of the day that he had begun his departure from the person his mother had known. Yes, he was not the same boy he had been back when his mother so readily embraced him, no matter what. Maybe, now, after all his mistakes, not even she would embrace him, so why should he hope that Katara would accept comfort from him? _I am undeserving…_ he began his spiral, the same spiral he would go down anytime his uncle dared to offer him hope of a new life, but… her voice broke through, and it was...gentle?

“No, no.” To his astonishment she took two small steps towards him. He felt frozen, afraid that if he moved it would break this strange spell. _What is happening?_ “That’s not what I meant.”

Zuko felt the smallest of gentle embers try to ignite inside him, but he quickly extinguished it. There was no way. She couldn’t mean it. He _was_ the enemy. “It’s okay,” he said to her, and he meant it. Whatever she wanted to say to him, he knew he deserved worse, and yet, maybe there was a way... _I have to earn the honour of her forgiveness, the honour of that feeling… how to explain, that he didn’t want to be this way anymore..._

"I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I’ve realized I’m free to determine my own destiny. Even if I’ll never be free of my mark.” _My past. The choices I have made… mistakes. No... punishments._ This mark was his punishment. For what? For trying to do _good_ ? His father was not to blame entirely for all the wrong he had done but… This mark had been the start. He had tried to do right, and he had been so severely punished he had been blinded to the path his mother and uncle had tried to set him on, stumbling. _For years._

“Maybe you _could_ be free of it.” She snapped him away from the realizations she had drawn out of him, back into the green glow of the cave.

* * *

“What?” He seemed genuinely surprised she was still talking to him. Looking at him. But Katara had seen an opening, seen the potential of what Zuko might have been, _what he might be…_ “I have healing abilities.” 

“It’s a scar. It can’t be healed.” 

But she could tell, what he really meant was, _why would you offer me that?_ Not just because they were enemies, but because hope was something, that while so dear to her, had betrayed _him_ too many times. Katara believed in hope, and in Zuko she saw that hope might be powerful medicine. She swallowed hard, but she knew from the minute she had heard the sincerity in his voice, when he said _That’s something we have in common_ that there was no going back to seeing Zuko as _just_ the enemy. He was a victim too.

“This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties so I’ve been saving it for something important.” She stepped closer to him, determined. “I don’t know if it would work, but..” 

* * *

He dared not believe what was happening. Katara bridged the gap between them and stood directly across from him, holding out to him, a scared element. 

More sacred to him, was this look she was giving him, the earnest expression on her face. He closed his eyes, _what is she doing? Me?_ And as Zuko bowed his head he felt her hand on his face, gentle, warm. It was unexpected, and it shocked him, so long had it been since anyone other than his uncle had tried to offer a kind touch. He very nearly flinched from it, but Katara’s presence had this soothing effect. Like... _Being warmed from the inside, slowly… A warm liquid to be consumed carefully after being caught out in a storm.._ For so long he had been drowning, disoriented. _Lost..._

He wanted her hand to stay there forever. He felt as long as he could work to deserve her touch, this girl, who was standing there, offering him a second chance he did not think he had yet earned, offering him a goal, something obtainable, despite everything he had done... He had always been chasing the Avatar, an impossible dream, slipping through his fingers. This is what uncle saw. He could be good. He could feel this way… He could give and receive kindness... just as he had before, so long ago he had almost forgotten…

A crash startled them both. Her hand dropped from his cheek, but he sealed that sensation in his memory. He would come to think of it again, when he needed to, when he was ready, to pull himself back onto the right path, it would be a driving force, something solid to hold on to, it was not always so dangerous to... _I could...hope._

And to him, hope was a piercing blue turned soft.

* * *

“Aang!” Katara went to embrace her friend, her palm still feeling the warmth of Zuko’s face. 

They were back in action! And yet… She did not forget the look on the young Prince’s face. She sensed that something had shifted, even if the water had not healed his face. Something within had been smoothed, like water had run along previously jagged edges and begun to shape something new. 

Perhaps he could change. She glanced briefly at him after untangling from Aang. The way he was receiving the hug from his uncle, as though it were an unfamiliar thing… She caught herself feeling sorry for the guy, wishing that for all the time she had spent unloading her story at Zuko, she had had more time to learn his. 

_I hope…_


End file.
